ing trained to habits of
industry. The mass of them were men of intelligence, resolution, energy,
religious and moral in character. They were a God-fearing,
liberty-loving, tyrant-hating, Sabbath-keeping, covenant-adhering race,
and schooled by a discipline made fresh and impressive by the heroic
efforts at Derry and Enniskillin. Their women were fine specimens of the
sex, about the medium height, strongly built, with fair complexion,
light blue or grey eyes, ruddy cheeks, and faces indicating a warm
heart, intelligence and courage; and possessing those virtues which
constitute the redeeming qualities of the human race.

These people were martyrs for conscience sake. In 1711 a measure was
carried through the British parliament that provided that all persons in
places of profit or trust, and all common councilmen in corporations,
who, while holding office, were proved to have attended any
Nonconformist place of worship, should forfeit the place, and should
continue incapable of public employment till they should depose that for
a whole year they had not attended a conventicle. A fine of L40 was
added to be paid to the informer. There were other causes which assisted
to help depopulate Ulster, among which was the destruction of the woolen
trade about 1700, when twenty thousand left that province. Many more
were driven away by the Test Act in 1704, and in 1732. On the failure to
repeal that act the protestant emigration recommenced which robbed
Ireland of the bravest defenders of English interests and peopled
America with fresh blood of Puritanism.

The second great wave of emigration from Ulster occurred between 1771
and 1773, growing out of the Antrim evictions. In 1771 the leases on the
estate of the marquis of Donegal, in Antrim, expired. The rents were
placed at such an exorbitant figure that the demands could not be met. A
spirit of resentment to the oppressions of the landed proprietors at
once arose, and extensive emigration to America was the result. In the
two years that followed the Antrim evictions of 1772, thirty thousand
protestants left Ulster for a land where legal robbery could not be
permitted, and where those who sowed the seed could reap the harvest.
From the ports of the North of Ireland one hundred vessels sailed for
the New World, loaded with human beings. It has been computed that in
1773 and during the five preceding years, Ulster, by emigration to the
American settlements, was drained of one-quar